RWC ticket sales hit by glitches

There was huge demand when general sales resumed and by the evening, tickets were still available for 17 matches in the tournament — being held in this country in September and October.

All seats on sale at this stage for the opener — England v Fiji at Twickenham — had been snapped up, but two of Wales’ matches, against Fiji and Uruguay in Cardiff, remained up for grabs.

Sales for fixtures at the Millennium Stadium continued to lag behind other venues, with a further three matches there still showing availability, although the remaining tickets for France v Ireland had been bought.

The latest allocations for New Zealand v Argentina at Wembley and Scotland v South Africa at St James’ Park had also been rapidly claimed.

However, it was a day when many supporters were left incensed by the process of trying to buy tickets online.

With vast numbers attempting to access the official website, delays of several hours and various technical glitches were reported by many of those trying to buy. Social media was awash with tales of angst as the system struggled to cope with the traffic.

Recently departed chief executive Debbie Jevans had insisted before she resigned that the website would cope with demand. ‘The capacity we’ve built into the system means we are confident it will stand up,’ she predicted.

But the experiences posted on Twitter by frustrated would-be spectators told a different story. Tom Andrews tweeted: ‘I have been in online queue for Rugby World Cup tickets for 8hrs 45 mins, unbelievable!!’

Rupert Garrett was equally fed up, posting: ‘Been queuing since 10am for Rugby World Cup tickets but still having to wait! Same happened with Olympics. Waste of time. Disillusioned joke!’

It was a similar story for ‘LittleMead’, who tweeted: ‘I know British people love to queue, but the Rugby World Cup tickets wheel of doom is something else! #whyarewewaiting’

Jamie Cleland added: ‘Seems to be a consistent pattern of ticket distribution for major sporting events. You’d think best practice would now be learned.’

An England Rugby 2015 spokeswoman last night insisted that many thousands of tickets were sold yesterday but conceded that ‘there have been a lot of queues on the website and we are aware of that’.

The official line is that those who managed to access the system often spent long periods browsing the options, which led to a delay for others in the queue.

Having begun the day with around 70,000 tickets to sell, officials were attempting to keep potential spectators informed of progress via Twitter.

But with an official re-sale programme now in operation, matches will not be declared official sell-outs as tickets may become available again at a later date.

2.3m

The total number of tickets that were available when they first went on sale in September last year – Daily Mail